Today's News

If ever there was a political cartoon that was just perfectly brilliant, it was the one in the Roanoke Times last week.

In it, a man and his wife step outside onto their front porch to see a space ship sitting in the front yard. They look at and listen intently to the alien who has emerged from the craft.
He says, “We have been watching transmissions of something called ‘the Republican debates,’ and we see no reason for your species to continue.”

This election season has been one of strange stories and amazing facts.

One of the amazing facts is that, for the first time in the 14 years that I have been covering the Bedford area, there are contested elections. During those years, most school board and board of supervisors incumbents have run for reelection unopposed.

Next Tuesday is the big day! It's the day that we get to do more than just gripe about the government. It's the day we get to do something about it. Nov. 8 is election day.

Last month the people of the little North African country of Tunisia got to exercise a basic human right that Americans have had for more than two centuries. That country had its first free and fair election in its history and that day didn't come easy. They had to run a dictator out of the country earlier this year and some Tunisians died in the effort.

The 41-year-old Bedford woman charged with injuring two people as a result of a May 28 accident on Peaks Road had two felony counts of DUI maiming certified to the grand jury following a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Bedford County General District Court.

Randy Krantz is seeking his fifth term as Bedford County's Commonwealth's Attorney and like all but one of his previous elections, he is running unopposed.

First elected in 1995—his only contested election—Krantz says he has been “very privileged” to have served in his position. “I get to do a job I love in a hometown I love,” he said.
Not that it's always easy.

Both Faye Eubank, Bedford County’s commissioner of the revenue, and Rebecca C. “Becky” Jones, Bedford County’s treasurer, were their predecessors’ chief deputy before being elected to their respective offices. Both the commissioner of the revenue and the treasurer are constitutional officers. Eubank and Jones are both running unopposed this year.

Next Tuesday is the big day.
Bedford and Bedford County voters will have the opportunity to go to the polls Nov. 8 and make decisions that will affect the make-up of the county’s board of supervisors and the school board. They will also decide who will represent them in the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates.

And there’s a contested sheriff’s race.
There’s a lot at stake in this year’s election.

And the emergency crews were ready.
Last Friday afternoon members of the Bedford County special operations team and the Bedford VFD responded to a call of a horse that had fallen into a residential swimming pool near Big Island Highway.
According to Bedford Fire Chief Brad Creasy the horse had apparently been in the water for some time and was fatigued and suffering from hypothermia.